Abstract
The development of sport as a profession led to the emergence of new professions of which one is that of the sport agent (Rossi & Tessari, 2017). The development has increased the significance of the athlete-agent relationship, with the agent acting as a mentor, guide, lawyer and most notably an associate with key responsibilities to secure, negotiate and manage the athlete’s contract with possible employers and sponsors. In South Africa, even though many professional athletes can amass great fortunes during their professional careers, many will face the grim prospect of bankruptcy when they end their professional careers. Some examples of athletes that faced bankruptcy in South Africa, includes, Philemon Masinga, the man that scored the goal that took South Africa to their first FIFA world cup in 1998, became a multimillionaire during and playing days, but lost it all in short period of time after retirement. He lost his multi-million-rand mansion and had to move to a back room at his mother’s house in Soweto. The other example is that of Thembinkosi Fanteni, a professional football athlete that loved the lavish lifestyle, involving highly priced international brands, spending money on women and expensive cars. He too lost all his fortunes shortly after retirement. In this context critics constantly accuse agents of mismanaging and exploiting desperate athletes by, amongst other things, charging athletes exorbitant fees for their services. The research question postulated was: “What constitutes athlete-agent agency in the South African sport industry?” The underlying aim of this research project is: To develop an athlete-agent agency framework for the South African sport industry, to address the lack thereof. The objectives of the research included undertaking a contextual literature review on agency and establishing the determinants of athleteagent agency in the South African sport industry, to establish expectations of athletes and agents of athlete-agent agency and to establish experiences of athletes and agents of athlete-agent agency. Factor analysis was utilised to establish validity of the relevance of questions related to determinants of athlete-agent agency. The research followed a descriptive explorative design utilising a mixed methods approach utilising document analysis (current professional athlete/agent contracts) with semi-structured interviews as qualitative and a self-structured questionnaire as quantitative research methods. The study sample for current professional athlete/agent contracts were nine (N=9), eight interviews with agents (N=8) and eight iv current professional athletes (N=8). Questionnaires were distributed randomly among 100 (N=100) current professional athletes. The research concluded that the athlete-agent agency in South Africa has the following determinants namely, the athlete, agent, contractual relationship, communication, fiduciary relationship, mentoring, cooperation, information asymmetry and three-way relationship. This plays out within the context of the relationship regarding the level of competence of athletes, requirements of the national sport federation regarding athletes and completion amongst athletes to access contracts. An agency framework was developed based on these results and recommendations for athlete-agent agency and further studies were provided. The paired t-test was applied to test the significant difference between expectation and experiences of the athletes in each of the determinants of the athlete-agent agency. The major recommendations from this study provide organisations and practitioners in professional sport with tools on how the athlete-agent agency relationship could be better organised.
D.Phil. (Sport Management)